Polish and Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed a necropolis
containing the 4,000-year-old stone tomb of a royal official, Egypt's supreme
council of antiquities announced yesterday.

The culture minister, Farouk Hosni, said that the necropolis,
near the pyramids of Saqqara, 15 miles south of Cairo, held the tomb of
a man called Ny-Ankh-Nefetem, identified in hieroglyphic writing as the
god's servant of the pyramids of the kings Unas and Teti, who ruled successively
from 2375BC to 2291BC.

The rectangular-shaped tomb had false doors, a chapel,
and a burial chamber decorated with scenes showing part of the deceased's
daily life and his titles, including keeper of the king's property and
head steward of the Great House. Most of the reliefs were well preserved,
the most impressive one showing the deceased walking with his son. An official
said the tomb was found below a cluster of mummy remains, coffins and skeletons
dating from the late ancient Egyptian, Ptolemaic and Greco-Roman periods.